A former top Border Patrol official said Monday that the pepper spray used to stop migrants from forcing their way across the US border to seek asylum was so harmless, they could eat it on their nachos.
“It’s natural. You could actually put it on your nachos and eat it. It’s a good way of deterring people without long-term harm,” said ex-Border Patrol deputy chief Ron Colburn, who served under President George W. Bush.
Colburn, speaking on “Fox & Friends,” decried what he called a “core of violence” among the hundreds of Central American asylum seekers, a number of whom stormed the border at Tijuana, prompting Border Patrol agents to force them back.
The migrants, he said, had a “sense of entitlement,” and the use of tear gas, which also affected women and children as it wafted on the breeze, was “absolutely” the right call.
But experts said that pepper spray wasn’t as harmless as Colburn suggested.
“There is no real scientific basis for the claim that OC [pepper] sprays are relatively safe,” according to a study from Duke University and the University of North Carolina reported in the Daily Beast.
“In fact, a number of reports have associated serious adverse sequelae, including death, with legitimate use, as well as misuse and abuse, of these sprays,” the authors wrote.
Human rights and immigration advocates called the use of pepper spray on women and children inhumane.
US officials on Sunday reopened the crossing at the San Ysidro port of entry between San Diego and Tijuana, the most heavily trafficked land border in the Western Hemisphere, after shutting it down for several hours.
President Trump has vowed the asylum seekers would not easily enter the country, and on Monday threatened again to shut down the border, which stretches 2,000 miles.
